Wednesday, August 13, 2003

Many citizens may not be aware of the inconsistency displayed by our current city council. While publicly vocalizing a budget crisis requiring either employee layoffs or significant tax increases they continue to make decisions as a council that are blatant wastes of money. Some members are talking about cutting jobs to correct the budget problem, while others take a more liberal approach and recommend raising our taxes. They blame a drastic decline in revenues from many sources, but fail to mention their gross display of superfluous spending as a cause of the problem.

I have attended several council meetings throughout the past year and have been astonished by our elected officials. My utter disbelief of these officials' behavior and actions continues to grow daily. If you have not been to a meeting, I would recommend that you attend to view the three-ring circus that is in town on the first and third Thursday nights of the month. Admission is free, but trust me, these people are costing you a lot of money.

The first opportunity I had to learn about the amazing budgetary prowess of the council was at the June 6, 2002, council meeting. Knowing the evident possibility of shortfalls in the budget and an upcoming budget crisis, they committed citizens to annual debt payments of over $86,000 per year, totaling $825,000, for a parcel of land close to the new Wal-Mart. This high cost did not include the golf cart bridge they were considering, which brought the cost to over $1 million.

At that meeting the council said the purchase could occur without an increase in the millage rate, but now they are talking about increasing the millage rate because of shortfalls in the budget. Sounds like someone was not being honest at that meeting.

The allocation of the money for this bridge also occurred during the endless debate over the debt of the Development Authority. I recall many council members saying that they did not want to bind future councils to payments on the debt for improvements to Development Authority facilities. Yet they did not hesitate to commit us to about $1 million in debt for a cart bridge that serves only a few residents of our city to ride their golf cart to nowhere.

The city council continued that June 6 meeting by discussing allocating money for a dog park in PTC. Council wanted $14,000 to put up a fence around a small parcel of land for a dog park. While a gated area for your dog to run around may seem like a good idea, would you place it as a priority in this city when you expect a budget crisis?

It was my hope that these mistakes were caused by the inexperience of the council and that things would get better. However, after 18 months of this council, it appears that nothing is getting better. This council continues to make horrible decisions that are costing you money.

I'm sure you have read many of the articles in recent weeks about the upcoming budget. Our mayor and council members have been beating each other up in public debating the budget crisis. From Mayor Brown's tone it would seem that the city is dead broke and council needs to raise taxes and cut costs to meet budget requirements. In fact, Mayor Brown was quoted in the AJC claiming that, "Probably the biggest cut we're proposing is the employees' cost-of-living adjustment, which would amount to a little over $200,000." Cutting city employee's COLA is their biggest solution to helping solve the city's budget problem.

So you can imagine my surprise when council voted 3-2 to create a new position in our city government, assistant city manager. This position was created to the tune of $108,991 base salary. This salary does not include the costs associated with creating the position, finding and training the correct person, benefits, or other costs associated with staff members. It seems to me that the $109,000 should go to the people who make this city function, the present city employees, not one new position.

I would like to hear the three men (Brown, Rapson, Weed) who voted to create the new position justify their actions when they have been complaining about the budget shortages for months. Perhaps our council should tell city employees the real reason they might not get the raise they deserve, or possibly be fired, is because our council blew half of the money needed for the raises to create one position that is not even needed.

In fact, City Manager McMullen was quoted recently in The Citizen saying, "Right now, there is no cost of living increase. We could find cost savings to partially fund it, but not fully fund it ... Our recommendation would be that if (city council) wants to go forward with a 1 percent cost of living raise, to fund it by reducing some expenditures further and adding a small increase to the millage."

While he is claiming not to have money to cover employee raises, he is simultaneously asking council to create the new $109,000 position that probably is not even needed. I am not saying that in a budget crisis that automatic raises are necessarily the right move, but at least have the decency to tell city employees and citizens the truth.

Throughout my 14 years in PTC we have had one man hold the position of city manager, and he did a darn fine job. Throughout all the growth in this city, Jim Basinger managed without an assistant city manager. Can someone explain to me why an assistant is suddenly needed, when the city is nearly built out? Our council publicly talks about the budget crisis, yet what was one salaried position a year ago has now grown to nearly three salaries: Mr. McMullen's salary, the severance package of our previous city manager, and now the salary of an assistant city manager.

Gross negligence in the handling of money has become a theme for this council. In fact, some of them may want to consider a reelection slogan of: "I can waste your money better than Washington."

I have been astonished by the priorities some members of this council have placed on our money, ranging from unnecessary legal fees to unnecessary engineering fees to unnecessary bridges to unnecessary dog parks. In a letter to the editor in The Citizen on August 6, 2003, former Mayor Bob Lenox cited nearly $1.3 million squandered by Mayor Brown. You can now add another $109,000 per year to that figure.

Mayor Brown may have also cost you millions of dollars by deciding to drop the tax equity lawsuit against the county. The county has been, I believe, collecting a drastically larger amount of tax revenue from PTC residents than the residents have been receiving in services from the county. I guess our city officials are willing to overlook your millions of overpaid tax dollars.

This council could also save the citizens of PTC a lot of money and time if they would do some homework prior to arriving at a council meeting. It seems that I cannot attend a meeting without them tabling motions or sending something to city staff to examine, because they neglected to do any research before the meeting. Many of the items they "send to city staff to examine" could be addressed and solved at the meeting if they would take the time to investigate the topic beforehand.

I believe the citizens of PTC deserve better representation than we currently have. Our current council will not even take responsibility for their actions. In a letter on July 30, the mayor blamed our current budget crisis on a city council vote in 2000 to raise employee wages and hire firefighters to protect our citizens, while keeping taxes low.

Come on, Mr. Mayor, a vote three years ago is causing our current problem? Maybe you should take a look at your voting record to find the problem. In fact, I encourage everyone to take a look at the council's record. You may come to a different conclusion than me, but it is this citizen's opinion that the people of PTC should demand more from our elected officials. We should expect someone who can admit mistakes, learn from them, and make improvements to the city.

Council, please do your job instead of playing politics and blaming others for your problems. I hope council will become straightforward when discussing future budget problems.

Nick Kaigler

Peachtree City, Ga.

[Editor's note: Peachtree City actually did employ an assistant city manager for two years under former City Manager Jim Basinger. During the administration of former Mayor Bob Lenox in 1998, Joe Morton left his city manager's position with the city of Fayetteville to take the second slot in Peachtree City government, specializing in finances. He returned to his city manager's position with Fayetteville in April 2000.]